


No Question of Whiteness

by dorothydonne



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mycroft is the most dangerous man you'll ever meet, Past Child Abuse, References to Domestic Violence, References to Past Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-11
Updated: 2012-02-11
Packaged: 2017-10-30 22:49:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/337046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dorothydonne/pseuds/dorothydonne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Calm. How could he possibly have expected calm?</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p>Sherlock and John have an argument that leads to a misinterpretation on Sherlock’s part, which John makes right with the help of a certain protective older brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Question of Whiteness

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for [Sherlockmas](http://sherlockmas.livejournal.com/) on LiveJournal.
> 
> The title comes from "[Queen Anne's Lace](http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/queen-anne-s-lace/)" by William Carlos Williams.

To anyone else, it would’ve been imperceptible. The faintest crinkle of Sherlock’s eyes--almost a squint--was gone before it had ever even fully shadowed the grey-blue irises. His face was hard as stone, but for that brief moment, it had been like glass that John could see straight through before immediately fogging back into an impenetrable cloud.

It was their latest row that had them shouting at new decibels--John angry that Sherlock had nearly gotten himself killed and maybe a little miffed by the sheer lack of responsibility shown by the other man when it came down to his own well-being. Sherlock gave as good as he got, reprimanding John for in turn risking his life to follow his--companion? Lover? Was there even a word for what they were?--into an empty underground station.

But the end of it was the part that had John gripping the back of one of the kitchen chairs, digging his fingers into the uneven textures of the wood. They’d never had it out like that before--and Sherlock had certainly never walked away first.

John closed his eyes and counted to ten, trying to replay the last few minutes in his mind but failing to remember any of his words. There had been a heat in them, a passionate desperation that was fueled by the duality of his feelings for the world’s only consulting detective and the terror he felt when faced with the chance of losing him. He knew there were things he regretted, but they weren't written; not cemented in his mind enough to know _why_ he felt the regret. It was just a dull, questioning nagging in the pit of his stomach.

They’d been across from each other for most of the argument. It was when John moved toward his partner with the intention of drawing him into a fierce embrace that Sherlock had--and there was really only one word for it--flinched. His body had had an involuntary reaction to John’s approach, and while John knew that he had probably been red-faced and menacing, surely Sherlock’s deductive abilities would’ve told him that in that moment, there was one thing John needed. John Watson, who Sherlock himself chided on being _too_ human and _too_ sentimental, had needed nothing more than the reassuring warmth of the other man in his arms. Only for a moment, only long enough to end their shouting and put it behind them and simply calm themselves enough to sit down and drink their tea. Talk it over; work it out. End the shouting.

 _Calm._ How could he possibly have expected calm?

Sherlock had walked out. John had halted his pursuit of heat-of-the-moment affection at the grimace and had stared at Sherlock, studying his face and wondering if he had misread something and then there had been a long moment where the dark-haired man had seemed to be waiting for something.

And then he’d walked out. No coat, no scarf--just Sherlock out in mid-December London wearing a suit jacket over a white dress shirt and dark trousers. He’d freeze. John had wanted to say as much when he heard the door open downstairs, but he’d been too frozen himself.

John swallowed and ran a hand through his hair before looking toward the windows. It was starting to snow.

* * *

He was carrying Sherlock’s coat and scarf draped over one arm, silently musing at how heavy the damned thing was when a sleek, black town car pulled up beside him. John barely had time to watch his sigh evaporate into the air before the door was opened for him and he was ushered inside by Anthea, who never even bothered to look up from her phone. She could've been picking up a John Watson doppelgänger and she'd never know.

It wasn’t routine, but it may as well have been.

In a perfect world, the awkward silence of the car ride would have taken him to a warm, secluded area where Sherlock was recovering from his stint in the snow with a steaming cup of coffee. That way, John wouldn’t have to worry about finding him laying in an archway somewhere, collecting snowflakes on his person in an attempt to discover how long it takes his extremities to develop frostbite.

However, in John’s world, the awkward silence was of course leading to an awkward conversation with none other than Mycroft Holmes, who was standing in a slightly-warmer locale than the empty warehouse (though John wasn’t entirely sure where they were, just that it was nicer while being just as vacant) and tapping his umbrella against his right shoe. John wondered if the man had ever actually been out in real weather.

“Doctor Watson.” Mycroft nodded his greeting as John approached.

“I assume this is about the fact that your brother is traipsing about London without proper attire? I’ll have you know I fully intend to smother him in winter accessories the moment I can get my hands on him.” John hoped that would be sooner rather than later, though considering Sherlock’s talent for escapism, he was sure he would only find the man when he wanted to be found.

“My brother is currently en route to the Vauxhall Arches, if he has not made it there already. It is his normal haunting ground when he gets into one of his spirals.” Mycroft’s mouth moved from a set line to a distinct frown. “I believe there are things you should know, Doctor Watson, but I fear my brother shall feel even further disdain for me if I were to divulge them.”

“For some reason, I find it hard to believe he could think less of you,” John said, knowing that it lacked tact and wishing he had turned his phrase more carefully. Mycroft was being perfectly cordial; it was John who had started the argument with Sherlock, so John would have to finish it. Obviously, Mycroft was not the one he was meant to finish it with.

“You are more right than you may think, Doctor.” Mycroft adjusted his feet so he was standing with them spread equally below him, shoulder-width, looking at John with a sort of formality that had lost any of the ease it may have had only a moment prior. “My brother blames me for a great deal of trauma he experienced as a child. Trauma that, I believe, would have been avoidable had I been able to--how does he say it?-- _observe it_.”

John swallowed. “And what does this have to do with me?”

“This evening, my brother believed you were going to strike him.” Mycroft’s words were delivered with such nonchalance that John nearly balked at him.

He wanted to ask when-- _how_ Sherlock would’ve thought this, but he knew with absolute certainty that he had interpreted the flinch for exactly what it was: an involuntary reaction, something Sherlock Holmes probably never imagined his body capable of with all of that discipline and mind work.

“My brother, Doctor Watson, suffered at the hands of our father for most of his adolescence. As Sherlock grew older and wiser, so our father grew embittered by his cheek and outspokenness. He began striking him, I’m to believe, when he was barely eleven. I never witnessed it--none of us did, of course, or we would have stopped it outright--but it went on until Sherlock left for Uni. I didn’t find out until years after, when he was in one of his spirals. You see, my brother has always been fond of making his brain sharper, but I believe that the drugs were meant to delete rather than to engage.” Mycroft paused, appearing to think about what to say next, and the army doctor felt as though his stomach had dropped with Mycroft’s words.

John clenched his fists involuntarily. Of course, wanting to lash out at someone for lashing out was a bit backwards, but anyone who could hit a child--their own child, a stranger’s child, hell, even a child as ornery as Sherlock had surely been--deserved to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.

“And where is your father now?” John didn’t realize his jaw was tight until the end of his question.

Mycroft’s face was an unchanging slate, but if John had to guess, he’d say there was a hateful smugness below the surface. “My father hasn't been heard from in more than a decade.”

 _The most dangerous man you’ll ever meet._ John remembered Sherlock's words and nearly shivered with the implication. 

“What are you suggesting I do?”

“I can’t tell you what to do anymore than you can get inside my dear brother’s mind and make him tell you, John,” Mycroft said, his voice more gentle than John had ever heard it. This was partially because his given name sounded much less harsh than the formal “Doctor Watson,” but John also suspected that Mycroft was being genuine. “However, I can tell you that he cares for and trusts you in addition to accepting your affections, and with Sherlock, that is as close to the perfect partnership as one is liable to get.”

* * *

When the town car dropped John off in front of 221B, it was already dark outside and the dusting of snow was enough to crunch softly below his feet as he approached the steps. Upstairs, he could see that the lights were off, though he had to assume that Sherlock had already made his way home, or else he was going to have to have another conversation with Mycroft about Sherlock being out, unsupervised and certainly underdressed in the snow.

No matter how many people believed Sherlock Holmes to be numb and unfeeling, John knew that that had never been the case.

When he entered the living room, he saw his friend laying flat on his back, stretched out on the couch. With the dim light from the street lamps outside, John couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or closed. It probably didn’t matter; Sherlock rarely slept if John wasn’t in the flat.

His silk dressing gown was open and half of it was falling off of him, revealing a plain, light-colored t-shirt that had ridden up on his left hip and dark pajama bottoms that were, somehow, too long for Sherlock’s legs, overshadowing his feet by several inches.

John approached him without a word, draping Sherlock’s coat and scarf into his own armchair with a quiet thud. The floorboards creaked faintly beneath his weight, but Sherlock didn’t move beyond the slow, deliberate rise and fall of his chest.

Even though he had resolved himself not to think about the extent of the abuse Sherlock had suffered, John found that he was hesitant to reach out and touch Sherlock now that he had the other man within his reach. It was ridiculous to look at the lithe frame stretched out in front of him and wonder how small he had been when a fully-grown man had taken to shoving him around. It was hard not to wonder if his own lips had passed over pale skin that had once blushed purple with bruises inflicted by a father’s hand. And it pained John to think it had been his own temper that had triggered those memories in Sherlock--that it had been his own hands Sherlock had expected to strike out.

Sherlock’s head was pressed back into one of the arms of the sofa and John knelt beside him, still not willing to reach out. Instead, he peeled off his gloves and shrugged his coat to the ground before turning and leaning back. After several long moments of listening to Sherlock breathe, John leaned back, letting the crown of his head rest against the boniest part of his partner’s shoulder. Still, Sherlock gave no indication that he was even consciously aware of John’s presence.

John breathed, finally getting the most basic form of contact and finally starting to feel the calm he had so wanted before, though now there was an unspoken tension looming between them.

He was just starting to fall asleep--even though it was far too early and he was damned sure he was going to wake up with the worst neck strain ever--when Sherlock shifted, near silently, and moved his arm so that John’s head tipped back onto the cushion instead, making room for Sherlock’s arm to wrap around John’s upper body the way a child cuddles a teddy.

 _I’ll never let anyone hurt you again_ , John thought, curling one arm up and holding Sherlock in place. He couldn’t promise he’d never shout or be cross with him, but he knew he could promise this, even if it’s to himself and never spoken out loud. All it took was thinking about Sherlock’s mind--ripe and flurrying with numbers, facts, and priceless data--and he knew that he was protecting something precious, something one of a kind. 

He turned his head slightly and looked up at Sherlock’s angular face, pale eyelids closed, lips relaxed and slightly parted, and remembered kissing sleepily on a slow Sunday morning four months ago. It had seemed like a counterattack to the inevitable awkward conversations that would arise from their impromptu intimacies the night before, but it had instead become routine.

Their relationship wasn’t one built on so many words--they had never verbalized their mutual adoration and affection for each other, never given a label to their relationship--but that was because it wasn’t needed, the same way John knew he didn’t need to tell Sherlock that he knew, or that he was sorry, or that he would never let anyone lay a hand on him again.

A gentle squeeze to his silk-covered elbow would suffice, and he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that his own touch would never stain Sherlock’s skin with more than a flush of pleasure.

For now, Sherlock’s arm around him was firm and all the comfort either of them needed was contained in a single room, a bubble inside 221B Baker Street, as the blemishes of London were overlain with a white blanket.


End file.
